1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for providing interfaces between management models and system consoles. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for analyzing generic management models and retrieving display names to communicate to a user using a system console.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is an industry trend toward using standardized software engineering tools and techniques to represent the design of systems to manage real world objects. One such approach is using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and a derivative of UML called the Common Information Model (CIM). Using UML and CIM, developers can describe a computer information system that is not bound to a particular implementation or platform. CIM includes both a CIM Specification and a CIM Schema and UML is generally used to show the structure of the schemas.
The CIM Specification includes a language model, naming conventions, meta schema, and mapping techniques used to map the CIM data to other management models including SNMP, MIBs, DMTF, and MIFs. The CIM Schema includes a set of classes with associations that provide a well understood conceptual framework within which it is possible to organize the available information about the managed environment.
The CIM Schema includes three layers. First, the Core Schema includes an information model that captures notions that are applicable to all areas of management. Second, the Common Schema includes notions that are common to particular management areas but independent of a particular technology or implementation. There are generally five Common Schema areas: (1) systems, (2) applications, (3) networks, (4) devices, and (5) physical areas. The third CIM Schema layer is the Extension Schema area which includes technology specific extensions of the Common Schema. The Extension Schema area may be specific to a particular operating environment, such as a UNIX operating environment. The Extension Schema may further describe either a specific-general type of environment (i.e., an MS-Windows™ environment, a UNIX-90 environment, etc.), or a product specific operating environment (i.e., Windows 2000 Professional™, IBM AIX version 3.5, etc.).
While CIM includes notations and conventions that are widely agreed upon in industry, a CIM model does not provide information for product development because a CIM model is implementation independent, meaning that a common CIM model can be used as a design starting point to develop systems in a particular operating environment. A CIM model may be stored in a Managed Object Format (MOF) file, which is an ASCII file that includes a formal definition of the CIM Schema. The MOF is used as input to a MOF editor, parser, and compiler. CIM is produced by designers and developers to model a product. The CIM model is then used by others as input to management systems. However, the process of using a CIM model as input to management software is a resource intensive task. A challenge, therefore, with the prior art is the time and resources needed to design a system using CIM and write programs directed towards a particular operating environment.
CIM models include a number of objects that can be extracted and displayed on a management console. For example, CIM objects can be displayed in a tree view control on a management console. CIM objects may be related so that multiple objects are related to a particular CIM object in one way or another. For example, a database manager may include multiple database management systems, such as DB2 and IMS. Each of these database management systems may include one or more databases. The databases, in turn, can include objects such as tables and views. Using traditional systems, information extracted from a management model was not displayed in a user friendly manner, so the user often had difficulty ascertaining the meaning of often cryptic node names. Additionally, CIM models describe tasks that can be performed with a particular object. The object may be displayed as a node on a tree view within a management console. Traditional systems are challenged in their ability to convey the tasks that can be performed on a particular object.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method to provide user friendly node names displayable on a management console. Furthermore, what is needed is system and method to provide user friendly task descriptions corresponding to various nodes appearing on a management console.